Disaster Zone

There are all different types of volunteer teams. 4X4 search and rescue; horse search and rescue; drone teams; cadaver dogs; search dogs; mountain rescue teams—and then there is a Volunteer Boater Disaster Team. In this podcast we explore how one city, Bainbridge Island, Washington State has established and organized a volunteer flotilla of boat owners to help in times of disasters. Tami Allen, Ha...

13 states have either a State Resilience Officer or a Chief Resilience Officer. In this podcast we have an interview with Mike Harryman, State Resilience Officer for the State of Oregon. Besides the pandemic, Oregon has had several other major disasters, including the largest wildfire in its history and a historic heatwave that killed scores of people. All of the above caused the state to do a ser...

The COVID-19 Pandemic has caused all types of stresses on people and organizations. The guest for this podcast is Dr. Kira Mauseth who is a practicing clinical psychologist, splitting her professional time between seeing patients at Snohomish Psychology Associates, teaching as a Senior Instructor at Seattle University and serving as a co-lead for the Behavioral Health Strike Team for the WA State...

Amateur radio is emergency management’s last best hope for maintaining communications in a disaster when all other systems fail. This podcast is an interview with two leaders from the Seattle Auxiliary Communications Service (Seattle ACS) Tim helming and Catherine Middleton-Hardie. Seattle ACS supports the Seattle Office of Emergency Management In my experience, they are one of the premier organiz...

We are seeing climate impacts across the world and here in the United States. In this podcast we look more deeply at those impacts and how people and governments are reacting. Anna Marandi , Program Manager of Climate Resilience and Sustainability with the National League of Cities is the guest. The changing climate is impacting where people choose to live and work. Actual climate migration is fac...

The COVID-19 Pandemic was a learning experience for everyone. A key player in helping businesses and governments continue to function was the Information Telecommunications (IT) departments. In this Disaster Zone Podcast I interview Linda Gerull, Executive Director for the Department of Technology for the City and County of San Francisco. She describes how they helped departments provide services...

Texas is a big state with big disasters. In this interview I also found Nim Kidd, Texas Emergency Management Chief to have big ideas. One of the longest serving state level emergency management directors in the United States he brings a wealth of information to this podcast. I learned a lot from interviewing Nim and hearing his answers to questions that I posed. We also learn how emergency managem...

Our maritime and aviation ports are critical to the commerce of the United States. Recently the importance of marine ports has been highlighted as challenges in the supply chain have been evident. In this podcast Ryan Calkins, Port Commissioner for the Port of Seattle shares information on the role of port commissioners , but also the scale of the operation in running both a maritime port and the...

Wildfires have dominated the disaster news, especially in the West, due to the extended drought and then extreme temperatures impacting the ability of wildfires to be really huge, covering large tracts of land that can be larger than some states. One tool used to fight these fires are aviation assets, to include helicopters and fixed wing aircraft. This podcast does a deep dive into the type of or...

Pets are part of the family. They come in a variety of types of animals, birds, reptiles, and they sometimes get more attention than other two-legged members of the family. When disasters strike, they are just as easily impacted as humans. In this podcast we explore what people can do before a disaster to protect their pets and then what to do when a disaster does strike. Sharon Hawa, a Senior Str...

It is an unfortunate truth that mass shootings are becoming much more common. In this podcast we learn about the deadliest mass shooting in the history of the United States, the Las Vegas Mass Shooting event in 2017 . My guest is Carolyn Levering, Emergency Management Director for the City of Las Vegas. She provides a compelling account for what happened and then the aftermath of the incident. The...

This Disaster Zone podcast is an interview with Brian Hastings, Director, Alabama Emergency Management Agency As such he is a member of the Governor’s Cabinet and the senior official responsible for all phases of emergency management. In the podcast we learn about the hazards that Alabama faces, e.g. more tornadoes than any other state, the composition of his agency and the jurisdictional make-up...

In today’s podcast I have a conversation with Gordon Graham a nationally and internationally known speaker on the topic of risk and risk management. I have heard Gordon speak several times and he is very knowledgeable and engaging. Our discussion covers a multitude of topics from Black Swan events, disaster planning and how to write procedures among many others. You can review Gordon’s Reading Lis...

Eight counties in Western Washington State have banded together to do regional planning. The effort has been funded by the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA) Regional Catastrophic Preparedness Grant (RCPG)   A 2019 grant is being administered for the region by Snohomish County’s Department of Emergency Management   Jason Biermann, Director for the county is interviewed in this podcast ab...

New York City is a complex place in which to work within public safety. In the middle of it all is the 911 system that receives calls from citizens and dispatches first responder resources. In this podcast I interview Chris Carver , a former Chief Dispatcher and Director of Fire Dispatch Operations for the New York City Fire Department where he helped to coordinate the response to some of New York...

Monica Sanders is a Georgetown University professor. Previously, she was a Senior Committee Counsel for both the House of Representatives and Senate Committees on Homeland Security. In this podcast we do deep dive into the legislative process of the Congress of the United States. The role of committee chairpersons and their staff is explored, along with the way in which bills are introduced in Con...

Alert and warning is one of the primary functions for emergency management agencies and first responders. You first need to detect the hazard, but then you need different ways to issue a warning. This then is the topic of this podcast with Matthew Straeb with Alert FM In the podcast we discuss the pros and cons of different technology tools being used today to issue warnings. I strongly believe th...

The Disaster Zone podcast guest is John Scardena who hosts the Disaster Tough Podcast and also heads up Doberman EMG a consulting firm specializing in supporting government emergency management programs. In this podcast we have a wide-ranging discussion on a variety of emergency management topics from ranging from GIS  to other technologies and how to address the integration of new technologies in...

All forms of science can be beneficial to people working in the emergency management and disaster related fields of endeavor. However, when it comes to working with people and their relationship and thoughts about all phases of disasters, it is the social sciences that can help us most understand and communicate with the people and populations we serve. Lori Peek, a professor in the Department of...

Training has moved beyond the classroom and is predominantly being done on line in the COVID Pandemic environment we are in. Todd Manns, the founder of  The Blue Cell is this week’s guest. In the podcast we hear about their lessons learned from moving to a virtual environment for Incident Command System (ICS) training. Additionally, they are starting up a totally new training series of classes tha...

This Disaster Zone Podcast is a very interesting interview with Tom Moran who was instrumental in managing the early stages of the All Hazards Consortium One of the key messages Tom shared was to let the private sector lead public-private efforts. Government endeavors just don’t seem to survive changes in leadership and funding. Then, in the guts of the podcast we discuss his experiences in electr...

Technology is dominating almost every aspect of our lives. It was not that long ago that emergency management and first responder agencies operated with just hardline phones and radios. Today it is a whole new ballgame. Unfortunately, many organizations have purchased technology that they are only using a small fraction of its capacity. In this podcast we explore how organizations can get the most...

The State of Hawaii has a unique geographical location among all states—an island state! This podcast is an interview with Luke Meyers, the Emergency Management Director for the state of Hawaii. We discuss the hazards the state faces and also their jurisdictional arrangement with a total of four counties. There is a brief discussion of the botched “the missiles are coming” warning along with other...

Land Mobile Radio (LMR) systems remain the backbone of communications for first responders across the spectrum of agencies and disciplines. In this Disaster Zone Podcast Todd Perdieu , Vice President of Products and strategy with L3Harris provides information on how LMR systems function. He goes into more depth about the challenges of coordinating radio spectrum issues in the design of new systems...

Building for disaster resilience requires a concerted effort to build disaster resilient buildings with new building materials and siting buildings in the right location to limit the impact of natural hazards. Evan Reis , Executive Director for the US Resiliency Council shares how they are working to improve building codes and construction methods and processes. He also touches on how equity and s...